When I looked at the works I'd read by midpoint this year, I saw three biographies/autobiographies of saints: John Henry Newman: Snapdragon in the Wall by Joyce Sugg, Apologia Pro Vita Sua by St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, and St. Thomas More by E. E. Reynolds. That's a good start, but I thought it was not enough. Saints provide spiritual role models. Their lives inspire and challenge me.
So I decided I had to read more.
But which biographies/autobiographies?
When I look online for suggestions, I found a wide variety of recommendations. Some of them overlap.
Some of them also involve books that I had already read.
And some of them recommended novelized version of their lives. Again, some of which I had already read.
I started to pursue my goal by digging out my copy of the concise edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints. I now read the saint listed for each day - today was a Franciscan, St. Bonaventure.
Butler's original multi-volume set made several of the lists, by the way.
I also ordered a copy of Sigrid Undset's Catherine of Siena. It's next up on my list of books to read - it also made several of the recommended lists.
I just reread The Confessions by St. Augustine, another book that made a number of lists. As did Saint Thomas Aquinas by G. K. Chesterton, which I just reread in 2022.
Among the novelized lives are several by Louis de Wohl. I actually have read several of them in recent years. But there are more!
Fortunately, I have many of these books on hand to pursue this goal.
Once I get through them, I will seek out more.
Pax et bonum
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